A number of companies such as venture capitalists and financial services companies are said to be circling the business, which they believe could be bought at a knock-down price and turned into a profitable entity.
Perversely, the Football League, which is owed £178m by the broadcaster, is reported to be considering acquiring the business.
Another possibility is a management buyout led by either ITV chief executive Stuart Prebble or ITV Digital managing director Rob Fyfe.
Steven Grabiner, who works for Apax Partners and who was chief executive when the broadcaster was known as ONdigital, has also been linked to a bid.
Talks with interested parties are expected to begin tomorrow after Deloitte & Touche has obtained regulatory approval from the Independent Television Commission.
Some parts of the service have already been switched off. ITV Digital has pulled its ITV Select movies-on-demand service after Deloitte stopped funding it.
Deloitte this week began turning some of ITV Digital's assets into cash in an effort to pay back some of the broadcasters' creditors.
The first assets to go were the company's three staff scooters, raising just £3,300.
ITV Digital parents Granada and Carlton Communications are expected to be top of the list of creditors to receive any money from ITV Digital, because part of the £1bn they invested in the business was in the form of secured loans.
It is thought that the sale of ITV Digital's assets may only realise tens of millions of pounds. Its most sought-after assets include its digital licence, its 1.2m subscribers, its 1.3m set-top boxes, which are worth £80m, and its transmission technology, which is thought to be worth £10m-£20m.
This means that Granada and Carlton could take precedence over other creditors such as BSkyB, which is owed money from carriage deals. BSkyB also owns the freehold of ITV Digital's Battersea headquarters, once the home of British Satellite Broadcasting, which was merged with Rupert Murdoch's Sky.
If you have an opinion on this or any other issue raised on Brand Republic, join the debate in the .
_1.jpg)
.jpg)
